Council f**king tax

[tinkerbellax]

So my council tax has been put up yet again. This is a bill that as a single parent, cripples me.

My bins now get emptied every couple of weeks.
My library has been closed
Today in my local paper it has been announced that extra funding for SEN children has been cut!

Wibu if I fight crime myself and empty my own fucking bin?

Justanotherlurker I'm ignoring your misinformation attempts.

Can you point out any misinformation attempt?

BoneyBack you really don't understand the concept of taxation, do you? The whole point of having it is so that services aren't pay per use.

I was referring to the persistent attempts to drag party politics into the equation. All councils are struggling, whatever affiliation they have. In fact the first to be felled is a tory council.

Exactly, and to try and pin that down to just being a central government issue is just shouting "give us the money we demand with no questions asked"

Which is why I said that the current funding crisis was due largely to the axing of the central government grant, and didn't say it was the only reason.

boneyback sorry, you've lost me LOL! One of us has had a drink too many to make sense of your last post :-)

HaroldsSoCalledBluetits

I understand fine thanks.

I am discussing against paying for use based on income instead of taxation, do you understand that?

I think that BoneyBack is arguing that Lord Sugar should pay less tax than the OP because he uses fewer services than her kids do. It's an interesting concept, for sure.

Which is why I said that the current funding crisis was due largely to the axing of the central government grant, and didn't say it was the only reason.

And is why I am pointing it out as you have not offered any kind of response other than alluding to "muh evil tories"

Central government sets the business rates not councils. There is a huge amount of misunderstanding on this thread.

You still have not offered anything different other than a vague term of anti austerity.

Nope, I really haven't done that on this thread either. I'm beginning to think you're actually reading someone else's posts.

And councils get the vast majority of their funding from central government, ie from your income tax. Council tax is a small proportion of their income and it also goes to the police, community councils etc.

vandrew4

Let me try it this way.

a single person and a family of four go out for a meal.
Under the current system the bill is split equally between the 2 groups, But because the single person has eaten less and the family more the family pays more of the bill.

Under your system the single person, based on earnings, will have to pay more than the family because they earn less.

And is why I am pointing it out as you have not offered any kind of response other than alluding to "muh evil tories"

This again?!!

For the hard of understanding, I have not said the Tories are evil. You can suggest I have as many times as you want. It still doesn't make it true.

BTW, there is no response to give. You have not asked me a question to respond to.

Central government sets the business rates not councils. There is a huge amount of misunderstanding on this thread.

Central governments set a set a cap of council tax, any labour government could decide to look at itself and look at cost saving without hitting the poor, instead they have not and do play political football to make a point, people look beyond this and blame central government.

Here is a list of some of the things that council tax is used for.
These include:

Youth services
Libraries
Parks, open spaces and galleries
Leisure facilities, including swimming pools and recreation centres
Social care for the elderly, children and other vulnerable members of the community
Support for the voluntary sector
Planning and building control
Refuse collection, street cleaning and other environmental issues
Maintenance of roads and bridges
Traffic management and road safety
Parking services and control
Elections, registrars of births, marriages and deaths
Cemeteries, crematoria and mortuary services
Consumer protection
Economic development and regeneration
Community development services
Housing, including the provision of social housing, housing strategy and advice and services for the homeless
Housing Benefits and Council Tax administration.

Central governments set a set a cap of council tax, any labour government could decide to look at itself and look at cost saving without hitting the poor, instead they have not and do play political football to make a point, people look beyond this and blame central government.

Most councils are "cost saving" that's what is being complained about here!

I really don't trust the councils. they have for years gone on about increasing costs and reduced services.

The cruncher for me was when the Icelandic banks folded and the councils lost millions of pounds as it was money form the public that they had squirrelled away

For the hard of understanding, I have not said the Tories are evil. You can suggest I have as many times as you want. It still doesn't make it true.

Well you came onto the thread saying it was all related to central government, your not a labour supporter so I am still waiting for your advice at to what type of vote would be anti-austerity?

Your obviously politically astute, so understand local politics council tax overlap, just wanting to know your position.

Council tax is 21% of funding in this example

Most councils are "cost saving" that's what is being complained about here!

And the majority of councils are corrupt as fuck and will happily shit on the locals to score political points, that is the alternative argument.

If people held their local councils to contempt we could have a better national government, as it is we have team sports

Dontmakeme is probably a lib dem. They are very critical of the Tories. Apart from when they pall up with them to form governments, that is.

It is pretty much all down to central government cuts, however obviously some councils perform much better than others.

Councils have to invest their funds, that's another income stream for them. An investment gone wrong eg. Iceland is not because funds were being "squirrelled away"

You need to move house. Not all councils are bastards. Our green (food waste) bins are collected weeklly and they give us free green compostable bags to put the food waste in too. Our council tax has just gone up for the first time in years but it is not a massive increase.

Also - are you getting the single person discount?

Not sure about England etc, but when I looked into appealing my business rates (because they weren't in line with government guidelines, which says the rateable value should be related to the rent) I was told by opposition councillors that the local councils here (in Scotland) had the right to value each commercial property as they saw fit, and that I was hugely unlikely to win any challenge (based on previous cases). It was the council themselves that smugly told me that it was "up to us" to decide.

They are also the people who altered and then approved the altered plans for an extension on my house, to include wood cladding, which doesnt feature on any house on the street, which I didn't want and which would require upkeep I wasn't prepared to do, on the premise " I think you'll find, Mrs X, it's OUR opinion that matters"

Huge sense of self importance and little other sense.

Our council have no money and have cut every service possible and sold anything they could find. The only bright spot was the 30% pay rise they gave themselves.